Power crazy GP receptionists

[LittleMonks11]

Is there a safe space to rant about the power crazy GP receptionists?

Disclaimer: not all GP receptionists are power crazy. Many are amazing and will bend over to help - my practice has several - but they are all young 🤷‍♀️

Yesterday I rang up because I knew I had (yet another) urine infection (this is a whole other thread in itself probably for Menopause) but got a call back from a lovely GP at a partner practice who looked at my history and said she would prescribe antibiotics and I should get a sample tested at my practice. It didn't have to be before 3pm (the cut off for sending to the lab) as they could dip it there. I checked.

So I arrived at just after three and this receptionist basically said I couldnt give a sample in because it was after 3pm (poiting to the big sign on the desk). I said it didn't need to be sent away and she said, well there's no one here to test it. So I said, wait, there's no doctors on the premises?

She relented in the end with a massive huff and eye roll - but I really had to push. As I knew it would turn out, another lovely GP rang back and said I had an infection and to start the antibiotics.

I just think she could have been a bit more frigging cooperative and less thinking she knew better than the GP.

I’ve heard much worse.

You got precisely what you wanted in the end afterall

On a practical point, you can order macrobid using any online pharmacist for £25ish. I know we shouldn't have to because we pour plenty of tax money into the NHS which is being trashed by the Tories, but if you need the antibiotics you need them. I've started doing this and you can get them same day or next day.

Sadly, I agree, most of our GPs receptionists are helpful, but there's one who is horrible and puts all kinds of obstacles in the way of the simplest of things - she's programmed to be stroppy and to fob you off. I've got to the stage of putting the phone down if she answers it or walking out of the waiting room if she's there, and trying again later to get someone else. She's truly awful to deal with.

I think your title should read Receptionist not Receptionists.

Im sorry for your bad experience I agree some are amazing and some are extremely awful (I've experienced both in similar circumstances of UTI / kidney infection).

If it's menopause related, ask for Ovestin (low dose oestrogen cream) and apply at the opening to your urethra. Can use nightly for a while, then reduce if not needed.

Quite.
Or "the specific receptionist I spoke to yesterday who was following the instructions displayed in her surgery and clearly hadn't been informed by the doctor that I'd been told that it was OK in my specific case not to adhere to those instructions on this one occasion".

Bit clunky as a thread title though.

GPs’ receptionists do an important job triaging for the practice. A very important job - which is why it’s essential that they get it right.

I had an awful time last winter getting an asthma review. I was really struggling to breathe and everyday life was exhausting. The assistant didn’t want to give me an appointment because “everybody has a cough right now” and I just had to wait for it to go away.

Tears and desperation from me down the phone and she reluctantly agreed to ask the doctor if he would see me.

She called back later and what do you know, he wanted to see me asap 🙄

It shouldn’t be so exhausting though, especially because it’s when you’re very il that you’re least able to advocate for yourself.

It's only before 3pm if they are sending to the lab - not if they are dipping in the practice. I explained to her it wasn't being sent away and I have dropped samples after 3pm before - not a problem with other receptionists.

Re: the title, she's not the only one on the planet.

I agree they do an important job - which is why they need to do it correctly. In this instance, she wasn't.

Thank you

My time on Mumsnet has revealed to me how many people have health anxiety

the receptionists are trying to shield GPs from the worst of this so that the GPs really can focus on those that need them

I wouldn’t do the job for all the money in the world

I may do the same with this one.

Thank you. I couldn't have put it better myself.

On the basis of this one interaction?

Seems a touch of an overreaction

Please don't do this.

I won't post a lengthy post explaining why because it's so bleeding obvious.

I agree - but in this case she was being obstructive without cause.

Clearly it isn’t though 😂

I've had dealings with her before

There are some awful ones about, but in this particular case it sounds as if she didn't get the memo, so not entirely her fault.

If the general rule is that they have to be done before 3pm then the doctor should have left a note in reception to say it was fine to have it dipped. Doctors would likely be in appointments pretty constantly or engaged in some sort of work, lots of people try it on and say well x said I could do y when it's a load of crap; from the receptionists point of view they were probably sticking to procedure as they hadn't been told otherwise, doesn't seem unreasonable. I suspect their annoyance was more with the doctor than you though.

well you knew it was “without cause”

but she didn’t

and day in and day out these days she will be faced with dozens of people who also think the same as you, but transpires they certainly do not

Did the sign say no samples after 3pm UNLESS being tested in the surgery?

I literally changed GP for this reason after getting verbally mocked down the phone.

I do the same with one GO receptionist at our surgery. She made it SO difficult to even register. Required the children’s passports with the forms. When i took them in she flapped them at me and said “what use are these without the children in front of me so I can verify they are the same children”

I told her right from the beginning (we had just moved) that I needed to register so I could start receiving antenatal care as I’d just discovered I was pregnant. I went back and forth about 3 times as each time she told me something different was wrong with the form or what I’d written. Finally registered. Called up and said I needed an appointment to register the pregnancy, a different lovely receptionist said “oh no love, all antenatal care is centralised, we don’t do it here, you just need to ring this number and the midwife sees you directly”.

I had mentioned my pregnancy every time I saw the difficult woman and she never gave me this information.

Likewise when DD had infected eczema, the pharmacy attached to the surgery didn’t have the antibiotic prescribed. The pharmacist told me to take the prescription back to reception and ask for thr GP to prescribe something else. This woman was having none of it, until I went and got the pharmacist to speak to her. I just put the phone down now if she answers or walk out and come back another time.

It is very much a case of “not all GP receptionists” but I have encountered a few in my lifetime!

Odd not to mention in op